Salaries in Austria will rise by an average of 3.8 percent in 2022
In Austria, specialists and skilled workers can count on 4.6 percent.
How are salaries currently going in Austria, the EU and other countries? The current Kienbaum study “Salary Development Forecast 2022” has addressed this question. SIE provides an overview of salaries in 48 selected countries with more than 600 participants from companies of different sizes and industries.
Partly no increases
The salaries of most of the participating countries will therefore rise in the coming year despite the current situation.
However, due to high inflation rates in some countries, the real increase will be low. Sometimes there will even be no increases or even negative effects.
With a real salary development of 2.0 percent and inflation of 1.8 percent, Austria is in the middle of the field. According to the forecast, salaries in the EU countries will rise between 1.9 and 5.8 percent. The forecast increases in Austria are higher than those in Germany.
Developments in comparison
“In the European Union, Hungary has the highest average salary increase at 5.8 percent,” states Alfred Berger, Head of Compensation & Performance Management and Board Service at Kienbaum Vienna. The average wage increase in the non-EU countries is 4.1 percent higher than in the EU countries. The nominal wage development is highest here at 14.4 percent in Turkey, with a high inflation rate of 11.8 percent.
Albania is the only country in Europe to have a negative development of minus 1.8 percent, as the average salary increase is low at 1.2 percent.
In Europe, the projected salary increases show clear differences according to hierarchical level. In many countries, specialists and skilled workers are expected to see the strongest increases in salaries. The greatest influencing factor on the development of salaries in the EU countries is the economic situation of the country, which is influenced by price developments. In Austria and Germany, however, collective agreements have the greatest influence on salary developments. Leading closely by corporate performance, where Europe is only in third place.
In most non-EU countries, too, the country’s economic situation has the greatest influence on salary growth; in Switzerland, it is the factors that affect corporate and individual performance.
India in 1st place
In a comparison of the selected countries, India ranks first outside Europe with a 7.2 percent nominal wage increase. This is followed by China, Beijing area, with 6.1 percent and China, Shanghai area, with 5.3 percent. The highest inflation rates are forecast for India at 4.1 percent and Brazil at 4.0 percent. “Real income increases are expected in all the countries under review except Brazil,” says Alfred Berger, summarizing the prognosis.
On average, specialists and skilled workers as well as top management perform best outside of Europe compared to the other hierarchical levels. In India, according to the salary development forecast, top management gains the most with 7.4 percent.
While in most non-European countries the price development has the greatest influence on the salary development, this in China’s Shanghai region is mainly influenced by the economic situation of the country.
In general, the importance of the influencing factors across geographical and political regions is similar around the world, although there are differences in the strength of the factors.